Home Automation with Voxeo (VoxML/Voice XML)

One of the features of my home automation system is the ability to call
the house up and speak to it to ask it to do things. To enable this I’m
using Voxeo and their excellent developer
program
which gives me an inbound phone number and the ability to host a
VoiceXML application with voice recognition and text to speech.

Using Linq-to-XML I can build the required VoiceXML hand it off to Voxeo
when they request it during an incoming call, e.g.

The ‘WholeHouseGrammar’ is generated on the fly by examining the
hierarchy of objects in the house so it includes every room, light,
sprinkler, …

At present the house only understands on/off commands but in the future
I hope to hook it up to the natural language engine so that the grammar
is instead constructed dynamically from every sentence that the house
understands today when you chat to it.

So currently you say things like ‘Front right sprinklers on’ when you
notice the lawn needs an extra cycle as you drive out the house. In the
future you’ll be able to ask it more complex questions like ‘who called
last week on friday after 4pm?’ which is a question it can already
handle using the chat interface.